


Keep the Tape Rolling

by SegaBarrett



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: M/M, Pissed Off Walt, Revenge, S5.2 AU Rabid Dog & Onward
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-05
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-02-07 12:29:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 14
Words: 15,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1899078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hank's plan and Walter's request get Jesse into deep water with Jack's crew. Hank wants to keep going with his plan at all costs, and Walt's unbridled fury may burn down the entire town.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Breaking Bad, and I make no money from this.

Walt didn’t know how it had managed to go so wrong. He had told Todd to get his uncle on this simple job, to scare Jesse and run him out of town. To get him off of Walt’s back once and for all. And if they roughed him up a little, well, Jesse was tough. Jesse could take it. He’d been beat up worse than this before, hadn’t he? They would never go too far without his say-so. He had control of the situation. Even in retirement, he was Heisenberg. He held all the cards. 

Jack’s crew would have to die for what they did. Every last one of them. He would find a way to kill every last one of them and then maybe… by that logic, maybe he would have to kill himself in the end, because he had ordered it, though he had never ordered this. Had never wanted this.

He swallowed hard and blinked back actual tears as he held the jacket close to his chest, close to his heart, smelling Jesse’s scent and trying to find some comfort in that. But the scent was masked almost completely by another. The metallic smell of Jesse’s blood.

They would all have to die.


	2. Chapter One

Jesse missed his own bed. He even missed those days when he’d slept on the hard floor of his house, listening to Jane’s voicemail message over and over again, wishing that he could talk to her one more time. At least then he’d been surrounded by the familiar aura of his aunt, as if she was watching over him. As if she had some stake in whether he turned out dead or alive.

ASAC Hank Schrader seemed to have no such stake, and Jesse, being no fool, knew it perfectly well. He’d been so tempted to bail - he had checked every window in the bathroom to see if there were any that he could get out of, but none of them would budge. He felt like Rapunzel up in the goddamned castle, except instead of a prince he was waiting for a DEA escort to his execution by Mr. White.

He’d become a liability and now he’d become a rat, too. Maybe he should have made Schrader call his bluff back at the house and see if he’d really kill him. Maybe being shot or burnt up in the White house was better than this.

He was trapped. Jesse wished he could take back every word of that confession, but that surprised him, too. Shouldn’t he want to get Mr. White, any way possible? After all, this man wasn’t his friend any more. He’d killed Mike, he’d hurt Brock and who the hell knew what else he had done?

But the thought of Mr. White being his enemy instead of his partner left Jesse with a deep kind of emptiness that he didn’t have words for, and even less so, any kind of cure. Maybe this was just what his life was going to be from now on.

He wrapped another purple blanket around himself and let out a deep sigh. He still didn’t know how he had even managed to sleep the other night, but he figured it had been either chemically induced or just a byproduct of coming down off of all the speed he’d snorted the day before. Now he was wide awake, too awake, and with nothing to do.

A rat in a maze. Waiting for Mr. White to come along with the rat poison, just like he’d done to Mike’s guys. 

He wished Andrea was close. She could make him feel better. She always made him feel so warm… She had that gentleness about her… He wished he could be like that. That he could make her feel better, too. But that was why he had left… He couldn’t be that man.

He curled up into a ball and waited. Waited for the pendulum to come and cut off his head.

***

Jack’s crew watched the house. They’d taken a long time to track Jesse here. Not rat patrol? Jack knew a rat when he saw one, and that was Jesse for him.

Maybe Walter didn’t know, but that just made the man more of a fool. Why listen to him? He had wanted Jesse brought to him – he should know by now that Jack wasn’t a paperboy. He didn’t play fetch.

If Jesse was ratting on Walter, he could rat on any of them. He knew Todd. And Jack wasn’t about to let his nephew get pinched just because of this little pissant. What kind of name even was “Pinkman”, anyway? Didn’t sound all that pure to him.

Not that it really mattered. Considering the company he kept female-wise, Jesse was a traitor to the white race to begin with. And a rat.

And Jack knew how to deal with rats. He was going to enjoy this one.

***

Hank had told Jesse that he couldn’t smoke in the house. He had also told him not to go outside. His nicotine craving was rising in him, however, and these conflicting messages were really starting to get under his skin. He didn’t mind pissing off Hank, but he felt worse about the possibility of getting smoke in the bed sheets that the man’s wife would have to try and get out. He didn’t have any kind of beef with the lady, and that just seemed rude.

Plus, no one was looking for him here. This was the last place that Mr. White would ever think that he’d be, and, given how the familial relationship appeared to be going, the last place he’d be coming to look for Jesse.

So what could a little smoke hurt?

Jesse ducked out the back and stood on the stone step, gazing out into the backyard. It was a pretty big house for a couple with no kids. Jesse wondered what was up with that. How long had they even been married… and why did he even care enough to wonder? He must be going stir-crazy.

Maybe he could see why they didn’t want kids. All the shit Schrader must have seen in his line of work, it was a world he probably didn’t want to bring an innocent into. Jesse could understand it. He was terrified of that thought, of creating a new life that would have to suffer for all the shit Jesse had pulled.

What happened to Brock was bad enough. He, in a very real sense, was Jesse’s son, Jesse’s kid, Jesse’s heart. And he’d suffered for Jesse and that old asshole Mr. White. 

Brock deserved to be avenged for the pain he’d been put through. 

And Mr. White deserved to be stopped. He had murdered those ten men in prison, for no other reason than they might rat on him. Why did that old bastard care anyway? He would probably be top dog in prison. Not like, even with his testimony, that they had any real proof against Mr. White anyway. Jesse was willing to try, but it would probably come up empty and he’d probably end up dead. Oddly enough, he was okay with that. 

If Jesse had known that he was being watched as he leaned out over the balcony, however, he might not have been okay with that.


	3. Chapter Two

As he looked out on to the grass, Jesse tried to think about what he would say. They would tape him, that’s what they had told him, get all the information they could on his operation with Walter White. But how could he even sum up the past year and a half in words? It was something where they would have had to be there, had to experience the pain for themselves. 

Part of him was still second-guessing the whole thing. Maybe he could still escape, find a way to leave town and start all over again. Brock was safe and Andrea was none the wiser about the poisoning, and Mr. White was probably going to be dead soon anyway, whenever his cancer resurfaced. It couldn’t lay dormant for long, could it?

He took a puff. He’d never wanted to become a rat. That was a dirty word, a nasty word, and he’d always pictured himself being as loyal as they come, especially to Mr. White, no matter what happened. He might shoot him in the head, but he’d never betray him.

Jesse wasn’t paying very much attention at all when he heard a loud bang. 

He turned in its direction, sure that he was dead, that Mr. White had followed him here and knew exactly what he was thinking of doing. That he had decided to take him out. There was a fear, deep in his heart, that swelled, but it seemed like there wasn’t anything that he could do about it.

He was going. He didn’t know where, exactly, but he was going just the same. 

Jesse slumped and let out a loud sigh. Maybe this was death. Maybe that didn’t scare him as much as it should.

***

When Jesse woke up, there were people all around him, and voices. For a long time, he didn’t recognize any of them. They were all raspy, older voices, except for one, the one he recognized and the one that drove a stake of fear straight through his heart.

Todd’s voice.

“Well, he looks like he’s starting to wake up, Uncle Jack.”

Jesse closed his eyes again, trying to curl into a ball and act like he was still sleeping. Maybe that would be safer. 

He didn’t fool them, though; he felt a kick against his ribs that stirred his eyes open again, terrified and whimpering. He hated the sound he heard come out of his own mouth – if these were guys that hung out with Todd, it wasn’t like it would instill sympathy; more like derision.

“My, my, my,” one man spoke, “What have we here boys? Looks like we’ve caught ourselves a rat.”

 _Oh God,_ Jesse thought to himself, _They know. They know I went to Schrader. This can only end one way._

“Please,” he gasped out. 

“Well, at least he’s a polite rat!” another man spoke up, and Todd chortled.

“That’s funny, Uncle Jack.”

Jesse looked around the group, desperately pulling himself into a sitting position, feeling like he was floating on a broken surfboard in an ocean filled with sharks.

“I won’t say anything. About you I mean.” Inside, he told himself that if he ever got out of this, he’d tell them all about Todd first. Get that asshole put away once and for all. That dead-eyed child-killing psycho.

“Oh yeah, you will. I’m sure you will,” the man Todd had called Uncle Jack said. 

“No, I wasn’t! The guy… He said I had to come with him or he’d shoot me. He doesn’t know anything about anyone yet…”

“He’s a pretty rat, too,” one of them commented.

“Slow down, Kenny. I know what you’re thinking, but we’ll get there in due time.”

At that, Jesse scrambled to his feet, putting up his fists in a desperate attempt to defend himself, thinking of the time Jane’s father had tossed him across the room and Jesse had threatened him with that baseball bat. 

“Leave me the fuck alone!” Jesse screamed, “Don’t you fucking touch me you psycho fucks!”

Jack chuckled.

“Oh, we plan to touch you a lot, rat.”

Jesse shivered so hard that his teeth chattered. He had to figure out a way to talk himself out of this, and fast. There had to be an escape hatch. Hadn’t that been the only good thing that Mr. White had taught him – that there was a way out of everything?

He couldn’t let them kill him and even more, he couldn’t let them do the thing that it was becoming quickly apparently that they planned to do to him. He had to find a way, a means. 

He wanted to beg, wanted to plead, but that wouldn’t work, that couldn’t work, right? After all, that was probably what they wanted. They were a prison gang – that phrase rattled around in Jesse’s brain, coupled with images from every prison film and TV show he had ever seen, a preview of what was going to take place if he didn’t find a way to get himself free and quick. Begging and pleading would just show them they he was weak, that they could push him around, but fighting didn’t seem to be helping either. Jesse was helpless against the mob of them.

In the end, all he could do was slump limply against the floor as they pulled off his clothes (he wondered vaguely why they hadn’t taken them off while he was out, but couldn’t find an answer) and pinned him down while Jack thrust inside him, causing Jesse to open his mouth to try and scream.

No sound came out; he didn’t have the air to speak.

Some part of him zoned out after that, simply such off, detached, disconnected. There were others. He opened his eyes at one point to realize that he’d been sobbing without knowing when he had actually started. 

There’d been more than Jack, but they’d all been a blur. He didn’t know any of them. He slowly counted the number of men but it all bled into thoughts that didn’t really make sense. Jesse just wanted to crawl in a closet or under a bed, somewhere safe.

Andrea’s. He wished that he was back at Andrea’s. He closed his eyes and pictured it, pictured being wrapped up in a duvet with her while she rubbed his stomach, while she put her head on his shoulder and whispered nice words to him. 

He felt hands moving him, picking him up and dropping him somewhere. He felt damp, wet all around, though he couldn’t tell the difference between tears and blood and cum anymore. Or maybe it was something else – spit, that was a definite possibility, or worse.

Jesse tried to move, tried to roll over, but it was far too painful. He couldn’t do it. 

He closed his eyes instead, wondering where they had put him. There was cold concrete under him, at least he thought so. It was hard to tell sensations anymore. 

He thought he heard a voice… a voice he knew. Some kind of voice. 

Then he fell into dark, pitch-black sleep.


	4. Chapter Three

“Hey Marie,” Hank called as he looked out the window from his bed, “Have you seen Pinkman in the last hour or so?”

Marie gazed over and shook her head.

“No, I haven’t seen him or even heard him. I guess I figured that he was sleeping. Should I go check on him?”

Hank looked at her and pursed his lips slightly in worry. 

“He wouldn’t run for it,” he said, more-so telling himself than her, “He’d have to be a fool to try and make a run for it with Heisenberg after him.”

“Maybe he just got spooked,” Marie suggested. “Or maybe he just needed time to himself. I’ll go see if he’s around here anywhere.”

After a thorough check of the whole house, however, she had to admit that she had come up empty.

“Nothing’s here,” she told Hank, “It’s like he just vanished.”

Hank cursed loudly.

“My only lead and he walks out my door! What the fuck? Can I not get a break on this shit at all?”

“Well, maybe we can track him down again.”

“How? Put up ‘Lost Pinkman’ posters?”

Marie rolled her eyes.

“Hank, let’s go through this logically rather than taking it all out on me. Would that plan be okay with you?”

Hank looked at her and nodded. 

“All right, sorry, Marie. I didn’t mean to bite your head off.”

“That’s more like it,” Marie replied. “He didn’t take that phone of his, did he?”

“What, that awful Hello Kitty thing?” Hank asked. “How the hell did he even end up with that thing?”

Marie looked over and quickly located it on the counter, picking it up and handing it over. 

“Maybe he went to see someone who called him. The girlfriend…what was her name?”

Hank snapped his fingers.

“Andrea Cantillo,” he supplied. “But he said that they broke up. I’m not sure he would be welcome to show up all of a sudden, especially on the run from the DEA all of a sudden.”

“You don’t know much about women,” Marie replied. “If a woman loves a man… they have a way of forgiving him anything.”

“Men do that for women too,” Hank protested, and Marie shook her head.

“We put up with so much more shit. There’s not even a comparison.”

Hank shook his own head, agreeing to disagree. He figured that in this point in his life, he should know that that was usually the safest course of action. He was about to say something, some kind of lead in to something important, or maybe not quite so important, but he quickly forgot what it was because the doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it,” Marie chimed, “Maybe Jesse came back? Maybe his little running-away escapade didn’t end all that well and he decided to come back?”

Hank felt that Marie was dreaming on that one, but that it was probably best not to tell her that. 

He didn’t know why he let her go ahead; he probably shouldn’t have. What if it had been Walt out there? But Walt wouldn’t harm Marie – he had to hope that he could be certain of that, at the very least. After all, it seemed as if he hadn’t hurt Skyler, at least not physically – mentally, of course, he’d done as big a number on her as he had on Pinkman. It was any wonder that either of them could come forward; Hank had to try to remember that he couldn’t blame Skyler. It wasn’t her fault; she was under his spell.

“Oh God, Hank! Get over here.”

Her voice was shrill, near hysterical. Hank didn’t know what the hell she could be looking at – Marie, OCD as she was sometimes, didn’t really freak out about bugs or spiders or even rats. So Hank leapt into action.

Outside the door was the crumpled body of Jesse Pinkman, bound and gagged and covered in blood.

“Is he dead?” Hank asked. The first thought in his head was, _Well, there goes my case against Walt now. Why did I let that little shit out of my sight for a second?_

Marie shook her head.

“No. He’s breathing. But he’s hurt. Really badly. We need to get him to a hospital, Hank, and now.”

Hank started to pace back and forth.

“If we put him on record in the hospital, he’s as good as dead. Walt will clean him out quicker in the hospital than he did in that prison. And he’s got to be behind this. You’re trained in medicine…”

“I’m an X-ray tech,” Marie corrected. “That’s not the same as being a nurse or a doctor, Hank. You know that. If you’re going to talk about some crazy scheme to nurse him back to health secretly…”

“Do you have any better ideas?” Hank asked. “First… let’s see how bad it is. We can’t leave him out there on the doorstop. Whoever left him there might come back for him.” He gathered up Jesse, as best as he could, into his arms, feeling awkward and disgusted as blood dripped off of the younger man and on to Hank’s clothes. 

“I have a lot of better ideas, but it’s not like you want to hear them,” Marie said dryly. Hank didn’t reply, focusing on laying Jesse down on the carpet, on his side.

He slapped Jesse’s face.

“Come on Pinkman. Come to. I need you.”

“Don’t slap him, Hank! He’s not hysterical, for God’s sake. He’s hurt.” 

She crouched down by him and started to peel off his T-shirt. Jesse stirred, and moaned. He shook a little bit.

“No,” he mumbled. “No. Don’t.”

“It’s okay, Jesse,” Marie told him in a calm voice. “It’s all right. We won’t hurt you, okay?”

“No… Please don’t.”

“Pinkman. Calm down,” Hank hissed. “Quit whining.”

“Hank, shut UP!” Marie snapped. She gently cupped Jesse’s cheek. “You’re going to be okay. You’re safe now, got it?”

Jesse’s head lolled and he stared at her, as if in shock. 

“What happened to you?” Marie asked him in a gently voice.

“Hurts,” Jesse murmured. 

“All right, let’s get him to the bathroom… Hank, I swear to God, if he gets worse he’s going to a hospital and we’re putting him in under a fake name or something. I’m not letting him die when we could have done something.”

“Well if you’d quit bitching and did what you were commanding me to do…” Hank started, but he found it a useless argument and picked up Jesse by his shoulders.

A moment later, Jesse was lying on a bed in one of the back bedrooms, on his side, as they slowly removed the rest of his clothes and hoped that he would make it through the night.


	5. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi readers! I accidentally left out Chapter Four. So here it is :)

When Jesse opened his eyes, it was to a room where the only light was streaming from slivers in a shaded window. 

Everything hurt, though if he was honest with himself he wasn’t exactly sure why everything hurt. There was a blind spot for the last couple hours and he vaguely wondered whether he’d gotten high again, higher than ever before, and just fucked things up that bad this time.

Maybe Jane was there beside him. Maybe she would wrap her arms around him and tell him that whatever he’d done wrong, it was okay, because she was going to find a way to make everything all right again. Then she would kiss him and tell him that she loved him and…

No. Jane was dead, and that would never happen. And she couldn’t have loved him, wouldn’t love him, not…

Jesse felt an ache in his ass and groaned aloud. It all came rushing back at once. Of course she wouldn’t love him like this. He was disgusting.

And then what about Andrea? Would she have stayed if she had seen him like this, if he hadn’t left her and tried to save her? 

He wasn’t sure. Andrea had a kindness about her, but he knew that kindness may turn to pity after she realized what had become of him. 

He felt wet, and everything smelled of metal. It was not an unfamiliar smell; it was that of blood. He was bleeding. He was also lying in a bed somewhere that he didn’t remember going. Yet somehow it seemed he had been here before.

“Please,” Jesse whimpered aloud. “I want to go home. Please stop.”

He heard the creak of a door opening, and there was a shadow hanging over him. He couldn’t tell who it was, so he curled further in on himself. After all, who could it be that he’d actually want to see, other than Andrea, kind Andrea who would somehow find it in her heart to still love him even when he didn’t deserve it?

She had always been so sweet and kind to him.

He started sobbing. He wanted her and knew it wasn’t her all in one fell swoop.

“Jesse?” a voice called. It was a female voice, he could tell that much – but that wasn’t surprising as he slowly realized the shadow had breasts and long hair. His shaking slowed; the people who had hurt him weren’t here; at least he thought they weren’t… 

“Yes?” Jesse spoke up in a squeak. He picked up a pillow and hid his head under it protectively.

“I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Marie. Mrs. Schrader.”

Jesse remembered her. She had given him coffee. She was Hank’s wife, Mrs. White’s sister. She was kind of scary. 

“Help,” he whispered, though he didn’t even know what that would mean anymore. He was pretty sure that he was beyond help now. Who would even want to? He didn’t have anyone left. Certainly not this man and his wife.

“We can help,” Marie told him, “It’s okay. We want to help, Jesse. We won’t hurt you.”

“I don’t know,” Jesse whispered, “I don’t… know.” Shouldn’t they be bringing him to a hospital or something? What were they supposed to be doing?

He didn’t know if that was what he wanted, though. If he wanted safety… but that wouldn’t be safety, either. He wouldn’t be able to close his eyes in the hospital… whoever had gotten to him here would be able to get to him there, maybe even easier.

And then they would do it again…

Jesse moved into a full-body shiver, twitching and convulsing as if he was having some kind of a seizure.

“Jesse! Jesse, it’s okay,” Marie told him, grabbing his hands. He must have been using them to hit himself because there was pain on his face. Maybe he had been clawing at his face, that must have been it… but he didn’t remember it.

He only remembered everything else.


	6. Chapter Five

The next thing he knew, he was lying on the couch with a towel on his head and bandages on his face. He was caught up in a thought about how he hated his face. He hated his body, he hated himself. He should get up and run…

But when he tried to get up and run, he realized that he was cuffed to something. The cuffs were soft, at least; they weren’t digging into his wrists. But he was still trapped, and there was nowhere to go even if he wasn’t cuffed.

Nowhere they wouldn’t follow him.

“Jesse, Jesse.” It was Marie who was speaking to him. “You need to drink this.” She presented him with a glass of water as he sat up, very slowly. “You need to keep control of yourself. You had some kind of a… I don’t know what to call it. A fit, a scene. You were hurting yourself.”

“I don’t remember,” he whispered, “I don’t remember that.”

“Well… Don’t do it again,” Marie said at last, after a long, awkward pause had hung in the air for quite some time. “Just talk to us.”

Jesse’s throat was so dry, he was sure that it was bleeding.

“They hurt,” Jesse started softly. “They hurt me.”

“I know,” Marie said in a soft voice. “And we’re going to take care of you. But you have to tell us who they were, and what happened.”

“I don’t know who they were,” Jesse blurted out, “At least, not most of them. I only… Only recognized one.” He suddenly remembered Todd talking about his uncle, his uncle with the prison connections. The men who had killed all of Mike’s men in jail. It must have been them. “Todd… I think his last name is Alquist. He worked with us. He’s crazy, man. He’s not right in the head. He killed a kid, shot a kid just because the kid saw us, because he was a witness even though… even though the kid didn’t even understand what he saw. He was waving at us. Just like, nothing out of the ordinary. All he would have been able to say was that he saw some guys standing around in the desert. Who would connect that with anything?”

“Jesse,” Marie said, “When Hank comes back, I think you should start at the beginning.”

“The beginning of what?” Jesse asked, curling in on himself. “I can’t talk about the thing that just happened, I mean… I can’t. It’s just not possible. Please don’t make me.”

“But we have to know if you’re okay.”

Jesse let out a shrill laugh and tucked his head into his knees.

“No. No, I’m not.”

***

“Hank.” Marie put her hand on Hank’s shoulder and turned him around. “You need to listen to me. We have to… we have to proceed cautiously.”

Hank’s lip curled.

“Tread lightly,” he said softly, with a far-away kind of look. 

“Yes, something like that,” Marie replied, not realizing the significance of the phrase. “It seems like he might fall into pieces before our eyes. And whatever his sins – and, Hank, well, I’m sure that he has them… if he does something crazy like kills himself up there… I don’t want that on my conscience and I’m pretty sure that you don’t, either.”

Hank didn’t reply, and Marie looked at him, worried.

“Hank, please tell me that you’re with me on this. I know the kind of man you are. Unlike Skyler, I do know who the man I married really is.”

Hank sighed and rubbed at his face.

“I don’t know who anyone is anymore either, Marie. I mean, I’ve been just as blindsided as anyone else. But our only chance at ever getting a resolution to this before Walt dies of natural causes and gets called some kind of mild-mannered teacher with everyone crying their eyes out about how down on his luck he was… that last chance is up there. It’s Jesse Pinkman, and if we’re going to show people who Walt really is, then we need him. He’s the one who knows, Marie. He’s the one who knows.”

Marie wished she was back in Dave’s office. She needed to be able to process all of this. But maybe processing wasn’t a reality in this situation. Surely others had lived this, surely… but not this exact way, not this exact moment. 

“I’m going to go back in and talk to him. Just hold your horses, though. Do we have a first aid kit? We should have one of those. I think he needs it… but whether he’ll actually let us near him is something else entirely.”

“Do you know anyone who’s… gone through something like this?” Hank asked, using air-quotes. The whole phrase sounded way too politically correct to his ears and on his tongue. 

Marie put her hands on her hips.

“Yes, Hank, I do. A lot of people, actually. I went to college, remember? The place where guys go to slip things in girls’ drinks all the time? It was pretty common.”  
Hank blinked at her.

“Marie… Did you…?” His throat was dry and he was praying that she wouldn’t come out with it. If it had been now, there could have been an epic rampage of revenge in his midst, but that far in the past? 

She shook her head.

“No, not me, Hank… But… a lot of people. It’s not like I’m an expert or anything, though. There isn’t one way to react. In X-ray… I’ve seen a lot of people, too. Some of them come in yelling, some are freaking out and won’t let anyone touch them, and some people are just acting like everything’s okay.”

“That isn’t really helping, Marie. What we need is a way to get Pinkman okay, so that he can help us to nail Walt. I mean, Marie… If Walt is behind this… If he sent these people after Pinkman…”

“Then Pinkman’s not really helping himself by staying here… And they must know that he’s here. God, Hank. We need to get him in a safe house or somewhere, if they know he’s here! They’re probably just waiting to try something else…” She threw her hands up in the air. Whoever these people are – whether it’s Walt or someone working for him – this must mean they know what we’re thinking. They know everything we know, in fact… Hank, they’ve got to know even more than we do! Then what do we do? What’s your plan, because it better be good.”

Hank turned to stare out the window. He was sure that he’d see a bullet flying through it any moment now, headed straight for his head. But he had felt that way ever since he’d found out who Walt really was, and how blind he had been. 

Maybe, now, he was hoping it would really happen.


	7. Chapter Six

Walt was pacing back and forth in the lobby of the hotel. Jack had told him to stay put, that he would let him know as soon as he had taken care of the Jesse “situation”. He was still having second thoughts. 

After all, Jesse had been with him since this whole thing had begun, since he had come up with this crazy idea about how to make money for his family before he died, before he “checked out” as Jesse had called it. How had everything gotten so mixed up, to the point that Walt needed to put out a hit (another Jesse phrase, or was it a Mike one? Another man he had sent to his grave, with less regret there, though, but not without regret) on his partner. But he had told them, no pain, no fear. He wouldn’t know, wouldn’t waste away on a river like Mike had. 

It would be over and done with, as quick as pulling off a Band-Aid. Like putting a dog to sleep, a rabid dog. That’s what Saul had called him. Putting down Old Yeller.  
The more he thought about it, the angrier he was that he had suggested it. That he had shown them where Andrea and Brock lived and told him that’s where Jesse would be. What if they screwed it up and shot Jesse right in front of the girl and the kid? What if they killed Andrea too, like Todd had done with Drew Sharp?

Walt dragged his hands over his face. Now, he was beginning to consider things he hadn’t before. Things he should have considered before sending this bunch to deliver a paper for him, let alone do something this sensitive.

But it wasn’t like he could do it himself. It wasn’t as if he could look into Jesse’s eyes, tell him it was all right, that it was what he had to do to protect himself and his family, and then pull the trigger.

Not that he’d even let him get within six feet of him these days. He’d tried to burn down Walt’s house. He had threatened… well, Walt wasn’t really sure what he was capable of these days. He had intended for Jesse never to know about what Walt had to do to get him on his side, to kill Gus. Even though it had been for Jesse’s benefit as well as Walt’s; what the hell did he think Gus was going to do, just let him live long and prosper at Pollos? No, no, once Gus killed Walt, he was no doubt going to find another cook and kill Jesse, too.

He started pacing again. He should have stood by what he had told Skyler, that there was no way, that Jesse wasn’t ever going to harm anyone other than himself. He still believed that, didn’t he? Underneath it all. Jesse had had his chance to kill him, to hurt him badly, to do a million other things and he had chosen not to. He had even given up his soul, killed another human being to save Walt’s hide, even though Walt had treated him like shit.

And this was going to be the final betrayal. Worse than Brock, worse than Jane. Was he going to really be able to sleep at night after he did this?

No. He’d have to call Jack and he would have to just call it off. He’d have to tell him to forget it. It wasn’t a good idea to get roped into doing a cook for these people, anyway. Did he really think that Todd of all people could learn the formula, even if Walt gave him a play-by-play? It would be Victor all over again, people trying to be something they had no hope of aspiring to in their wildest dreams, play-acting. 

He couldn’t owe these people, couldn’t owe them anything. He was out and he would stay out; once Hank was off his trail for good (and while he shuddered to think of what that would have to mean, maybe, he told himself again that it would just be more of the same, more confession DVDs, more bluffs he wouldn’t need to follow through on), he could retire and live out the rest of his time with his family. He could kiss Skyler good night, hold Holly in his arms, and shoot the shit with Junior. Live his life, be the man he used to be.  
Maybe the answer was to call off the deal and then take off, bring his family with him. It wasn’t like they didn’t have enough money now – enough money to make their identities change. They could be anyone he felt like being. He could be a success story that he could tell other people about. Not some gambler, of course – he would have to be a self-made man again. Some entrepreneur, but nothing that anyone would look too closely at – he couldn’t afford to arouse that kind of suspicion. They couldn’t keep moving; it had to be one and done.

Well, he knew where he had to start at least. He had to scrap this deal with Jack.

He picked up the phone and dialed the man’s number – he wished he could have been more surprised when “Bonnie Blue Flag” was the ringback tone. They were all ridiculous. He would probably luck out and they’d have to have given up anyway; maybe they hadn’t managed to even find Jesse at all. If Saul’s guys couldn’t find him, maybe Jack’s couldn’t either. Maybe he was laying low or had taken off out of town, for greener pastures at last.

“Jack,” he barked into the phone when a generic voicemail message popped up. Who the hell spent time buying a ringback tone to show they were intent on refighting the Civil War and then let the generic voicemail pick up? It seemed like a mixed message, if not just something born out of laziness. Walt couldn’t stand lazy people. “You need to call me back right this instant! We have something we need to discuss! Our business arrangement – it’s changed! I don’t need you to find Jesse anymore, just… just leave him to me, do you understand? Call me back.” He hung up and realized that his hands were shaking.


	8. Chapter Seven

“Did you need anything? Some water?” Hank was standing at the edge of the guest room, trying to be helpful. Like someone could really be helpful in this kind of situation. There was nothing he could do to bring back the kid’s peace of mind, but then again – had he ever really had it? Walter White called all the shots here, and had for some time now. This was just the latest play, and it seemed to be working. He wasn’t getting much response from the spaced-out blue eyes.

“Water,” Jesse agreed, softly. Hank noticed that his neck was turning red, and wondered how that hadn’t happened a hundred times before. The kid was pretty pale to always be out in the Albuquerque sun. 

Hank got up and brought back a bottle of water, handed it to the kid and waited. That’s what he needed to do, they needed an alliance of sorts. That was the only way they’d nail Walt, really nail him. Maybe that’s what the man had been counting on all along, that Hank and Jesse could never get along long enough to stop him. 

But he’d show him. This was a new low, even for Walter, what he’d gotten involved in. He was taunting them.

Hank shivered, however, as he had a thought. What if the cogs in the system were more than Hank had even thought of? What if Walt didn’t have a good of a control over his own men as he thought he did? What if Hank now had to fight not only Walt, but whoever the hell this other group was, too? 

“Jesse… Listen, you’re going to need to talk to us about this. We need to know what’s going on.” He tried to sound friendly; like he could be Jesse Pinkman’s friend.

“What do you want to know?” His voice came out in fits and starts. “What do you need to know about him? I’ll tell you everything. I don’t even care anymore.” He made a motion with his hand, like he was skipping rocks, like he was a teenage kid who was frustrated because his dad was enforcing rules that he didn’t want to listen to. Was that how it had been with Walter, this weird father-son attachment? What had gone so wrong, in the end? 

“I need to know whatever you can tell me. Can you start at the beginning? Back when you two… made your arrangement? Got into business together?”

“I don’t want to say it all again. You want proof, isn’t that it? You need proof so if it goes…” He kicked his foot under him and narrowly missed hitting Hank in the shin, but Hank didn’t really care. He was almost there, so close. He could feel it. Victory, victory at last. He’d try to protect this kid in the end if he could… He owed him that, for bringing him this.

“We can make that happen. We can videotape it. You won’t have to keep saying it all again and again for now, but you’ll eventually have to testify. And we can’t promise anything… If what you’re saying is true, you have done some things, Jesse.” He used the name quietly, softly, trying the Good Cop routine on for size now. Maybe he just needed to reel him in, maybe he already had him on the line. He didn’t feel the sense of satisfaction he’d thought he would, though. There was something missing, something that filled Hank with unease now. 

“I’m not going to make it to the trial. Don’t you understand that? Don’t you see what they did?” Jesse told him. “Mr. White can find me anywhere. If he knows I’m here, game over, man! Game over. I don’t know what I was even thinking…”

Hank sighed. Dealing with this kid was like dealing with a stubborn teenager. He wished he could just enforce some kind of curfew, throw some sort of consequence in his face and then be done with it, be done with him. Hell, after this happened he’d be done with the whole damned DEA once and for all. 

“Well, then he already knows. You might as well give us some information, if you’re going to be dead either way. What’s the point in holding out, if that’s who you’re holding out for?”

Jesse took a deep breath and looked around the room.

“I’m not doing it for you,” he said at last. “I’m doing it for them. For… for Brock, and for Gale, and for Drew Sharp.”

“Drew Sharp?” Hank asked, raising an eyebrow. “That kid on the news who disappeared? What does he have to do with Walt?” Hank wondered at it – he’d assumed the kid had just gotten lost in the desert and swallowed up by a sand dune somewhere. 

“He was there when Drew Sharp was shot. He didn’t shoot him, himself. But… one of the guys who took me, they did. This evil blonde monster named Todd. Neo-Nazi guy.”

“This sounds like the stuff of nightmares.” Hank was partially prompting him, needing the kid to go on, but then again, it was also true. What turn had Walt taken? 

Was it a turn that Hank could have taken just as easily, if things had been different somehow? What was the magic concoction that turned a good man into a devil? 

“It is,” Jesse agreed. “You think you know… But you don’t. You don’t know who he is or what he’s really capable of. You could never know, not unless you were there.” He let out a low, bitter laugh. “And Todd’s even worse. Todd is something else, really… I don’t… even know what to say about him.”

“Does this ‘Todd’ have a last name? That doesn’t really narrow it down.” 

“Alquist, I think. I heard… I heard someone mention it once.” 

Hank noticed Jesse hesitating. There was someone else, someone he didn’t want to implicate.

But for now, the ball was rolling steadily downhill. And that was just what he wanted.


	9. Chapter Eight

“Walt, what’s going on?”

Walt looked up, wanting to pull out his hair even without having any. Hell, he’d rip it from his arms at this point. He’d scratch his skin open.

These men had hurt Jesse. He knew it in his core. They’d gone and they’d done God knew what and it had been on Walt’s say so. He’d let the Heisenberg part of him creep in to the point that he’d turned on his greatest ally, his most loyal supporter. 

And it had been Skyler who’d suggested he do it. She’d urged him to. She thought Jesse was dangerous. Saul had said the same thing, had called Jesse “Old Yeller”, like the right thing to do was to put the kid out of his misery. Hadn’t he done enough of that? Hadn’t he convinced himself he needed to kill Mike? Not even to protect himself, just… just to settle a score. Because Mike wouldn’t give him the names he wanted. Because Mike refused to play by his rules; and maybe, because somewhere in Walt’s mind was a creeping little voice saying that Mike had always hated Walt, had always cared only for Jesse.

It had still hurt, though. There had been times when he’d wondered what Mike would think of his plans, of his strategies. 

He certainly wouldn’t approve of this one. If Mike had still been around, Walt would have never have been able to do this. He’d only been able to pull off his gambit with poisoning Brock, after all, because Mike had been injured down in Mexico. The older man would have sussed that out within seconds and put a bullet in Walt’s head. Maybe it would have been all for the best if he had – hadn’t Walt himself been the one talking about dying in a perfect moment? Didn’t he dig his own grave deeper each day? His wife hated him, his kids would hate him if they knew – and now the likelihood that they were going to find out was becoming more and more inevitable each day. What was he even fighting for anymore? What could really get worse if he let Jesse burn his house down? Hadn’t that been what he was doing for the past year, if he was honest with himself?

“There’s nothing going on, Skyler,” he snapped. “Except that I’m through following your advice. Make up your mind – are you in or out? Is there too much blood on your hands, or not enough?”

Skyler’s head went on a swivel, and Walt found himself immediately regretting snapping at her. How was it that he could always justify saying some awful thing to Jesse, but not to Skyler? Until now, when his goal in mind was to save Jesse, and to hell with Skyler and everyone else. A goal that seemed to be unattainable, now that he’d set this all in motion.

Maybe he should just leave now, sprint off again in his car to run over whoever was threatening Jesse. Maybe that was the answer.

“Excuse me?” Skyler snapped back at him, glaring daggers. If looks could kill, he wouldn’t have to worry about the cancer getting him. 

“I’m sorry, Skyler,” he spoke up, although he was feeling less sorry by the minute. He was wasting time, just like he’d wasted the first fifty years of his life. He needed to spring into action, but what did that mean when he didn’t even know where Jesse was? 

“Are you having second thoughts about this? Don’t try and blame me if you did something you regret. You already lay all the blame on me for this whole nasty, horrific situation, anyway.”

“How the hell do I do that?” Walt was a few seconds away from exploding, from smashing things against walls and screaming.

Skyler flew up out of her seat.

“Every time you say that you’re doing this for us, that you did all of this for us! But you never cared, did you? It’s just all so you can act like the big tough man, that nothing can touch you! So you never have to feel little or weak again!”

“I don’t have time for this!” Walt slammed his hand into the wall. “I don’t have time to listen to you complain, Skyler! There’s things that need to be done.”

With that, he rushed out the door, considering to himself that he must look erratic, unhinged. By this point, maybe he was. There was nothing he could do about it now, though – he would come back with Jesse or maybe not come back at all. 

The third option, that he would have to live with this, seemed too much to contemplate.

***

Jesse’s throat was dry, but he knew if he stopped this, if he asked for water, he would never be able to start again. He figured that was the only thing worse than being a snitch and a rat – being a snitch who couldn’t decide whether to snitch or not.

He sighed out after he finished his statement. This was something he hoped he would never have to watch again. Maybe it could just sit in an evidence room somewhere after whoever was supposed to watch it actually did. Or the locker they’d broken into with their epic magnet that one time. He tried not to think of how much evidence for how many other crimes they’d destroyed that time – a few more ruined lives to add to the ever increasing pile.

Maybe he could, or should, take it back, say that he was coerced. After all, Hank had pulled him out of the house with a gun to his head, hadn’t he? If he called up Saul, Saul could spin it…

But he’d beaten Saul bloody the last time he had seen him. He was pretty sure his lawyer had resigned the position, rightfully so. 

There was no one else left to get him out of here. The only other people who still might care about him at all were Andrea and Wendy, and he didn’t even know if the latter was still alive.

He wished Mike were here, wished he wasn’t sure that Mr. White had buried him six feet deep or dissolved him in acid somewhere.

That mental image sparked off another furious grunt. It was all his fault; it was all Mr. White’s fault! Why did Jesse still feel guilty about turning on him after all he had done? He didn’t owe the man a thing.

But Jesse should reach out to Andrea, just to make sure she’s safe. That was what he owed her, didn’t he?

How did he do that without putting her in danger, though?

He began to pace. Maybe Schrader could get her a message… but getting a visit from a DEA agent would probably signal more of a threat than anything else.

Maybe he could sneak out and go find her, sneak out just to see her one last time and to tell her he was sorry for everything and that he loved her… but could he say that? Was he worthy to lay something like that on her?

Not that contacting her was even something he would be able to accomplish. Schrader had taken his phone, probably to stop him from calling Mr. White or anyone connected to him. If he wanted Andrea to hear from him, he’d have to come up with a better idea.

Maybe a solar flare, he thought wryly, or send up a smoke signal. Hire one of those planes that dragged messages across the sky to advertise new companies. There had to be something that would work. 

Maybe he could just ask his captors. If he could find a reason that contacting Andrea would help their case, there might be a chance that they’d be all for it. Maybe that was the way.

But he wasn’t ready, not yet. Something about appealing to Schrader for help now felt… wrong, somehow, like he was digging the hole deeper and burying himself. If he kept hating them, then he could think he was doing this for all the right reasons, that it was some kind of end in which the enemy of his enemy had to be his ally, but only for now.   
His door opened, and Jesse flinched. 

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”

It was Mrs. Schrader, or Marie, or whatever the hell he was supposed to call her in his mind these days. She seemed like a nice enough lady, but he needed to keep his mind on track. She was the enemy. The whole White-Schrader was his enemy, if he wanted to be honest; hell, probably even the baby would have him killed if she had the wherewithal. Jesse was a target, and he needed to make sure he didn’t let himself get lulled into a false sense of security.

“You didn’t. I was just… thinking.”

Even as he entertained the question again, he knew that he shouldn’t do it. What if he asked them for help and it all went horribly wrong, again?

“I’m worried about Andrea and Brock.”

He wished he could kick himself, staple his mouth shut, cut out his own tongue or do something equally drastic. What was he thinking?

He wasn’t; that was what Mr. White would say, after all. He never thought that Jesse had the ability to learn or apply how to think, how to reason. Maybe he had been right. 

“Okay,” Marie replied. “Your girlfriend and her son? I mean… There has to be something we can do. I’ll talk to Hank about it.”

“I don’t want him using them to keep me in line,” Jesse told her, more bitterly than he had intended. He couldn’t stop thinking about Brock’s poisoning, that Mr. White had been willing to take that step just to get Jesse to be back on his side. Especially in a situation where if he had only just talked to Jesse and explained the state he was in, maybe Jesse would… maybe Jesse would have gone to help him anyway. 

It seemed to be what he always did, no matter what he had to give up in the process. 

“He won’t,” Marie promised. “I’ll talk to him. We’ll make it happen. It’s not like he’s going to let a child get hurt in all of this.”

Jesse couldn’t find his voice to remind her that a child already had.


	10. Chapter Nine

Andrea Cantillo let out a sigh as she watched the omelet cook over the stove. Another morning, and still no word from Jesse. That couldn’t mean anything good – and the hint that Walter had dropped hadn’t been missed. Jesse might be in a ditch, overdosed, somewhere, and there wouldn’t be anything she could do about it. It wasn’t as if she could go out looking for him – nothing good could come from going back to the places she used to frequent when she got high. And Jesse had never really talked about that aspect of his life; in fact, he’d never really talked about any aspect of his life at all. He had always been so closed off, with the most recent shock coming when he had decided out of nowhere that they needed to break up “for her safety”.

Maybe he had simply taken off, went off to find somewhere to get high where he wouldn’t have to worry about responsibilities; maybe he had been lying to her and it was all just too much for him. But somehow, for all the things Jesse was – and she knew how flawed he was, could see it plain in his face as clear as day – he wasn’t running away from her and Brock, he was wrenched away. What was pulling him, though? She wished, suddenly, that she had asked more questions, that she had said one of the things she wanted to say.

“Mom!” 

Brock came rushing into the room, nearly tripping over himself. 

“Brock, don’t run in here,” Andrea criticized, “You’ll fall and break your neck. We don’t need you back in the hospital again!” Even as soon as she said it, Andrea felt her whole body shudder. That had been one of the most terrifying experiences of her life. What had Jesse been talking about, what with “ricin” and poisons and all of those horrifying accusations? Had that been why he had vanished now? Was some kind of gang, or mafia, or loan shark after Jesse? 

“There’s somebody at the door! He wants to talk to you!”

Andrea sighed, wondering who the hell it could be. Was it Walter, back again, to look for Jesse? It couldn’t be Jesse himself, or else Brock would have said. He seemed excited, though, yet Andrea couldn’t tell whether he was excited in a good or a bad way.

She wondered for a moment if it could be Brock’s father, back out of jail again and trying to reconnect (or more likely trying to see if she would give in to some kind of booty call while he was around). Maybe he had told Brock who he was.

That was all she needed, that mess coming back around. She’d fallen for him when she had been fifteen years old, but not these days. Now she didn’t want to think about him, and she definitely didn’t want to talk to him.

What she wanted to do was find Jesse.

“Who is it, honey?” Andrea asked with a sigh. She turned off the burner and turned towards the door. It was hard to see whoever was standing in front of it with the shades drawn. Maybe she needed to look into that, cut down on the possibility of surprises.

“It’s a man… He says he’s a cop.”

“A cop?” It felt like someone was twisting Andrea’s heart, crushing it. This had to do with Jesse – were they coming to tell her that he was dead? Or badly hurt? Or maybe they were looking for him, trying to come arrest him?

She swallowed and tried to get herself together. She would have to be strong; she couldn’t risk making a big scene in front of Brock and getting him upset. That wouldn’t help anybody. Whatever this was, she needed to confront it sooner or later.

The man at the door was big and bulky, a man with a bald head. Behind him was a Hispanic man who looked like he wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing here.

This couldn’t be good; this couldn’t end well. Andrea took a deep breath.

“Hello?”

“I’m Agent Hank Schrader with the DEA,” the bald man explained. “Could we talk to you for a moment, Miss Cantillo?”

She moved to the side and let them enter the house, trying to keep from shaking. This had to be bad news, could only be bad news, and she had had enough to last a lifetime.

The bald man – Hank, his name was, she reminded herself – began to talk, and at first Andrea couldn’t really tell what he was saying. It felt as if there was a ringing in her ears, or if someone had turned Hank’s volume down too low. She wanted to ask him to speak up – she remembered her mother and grandmother yelling at her and telling her not to mumble, to be clear, to say loud and clear what she wanted to say and to not talk around things or else she would catch flies with an open mouth.

“Are you hearing what we’re saying?” The bald man seemed angry, but Andrea couldn’t figure out exactly why. Something to do with Jesse, but then again wasn’t someone always yelling at her about Jesse? Her grandmother had cursed him to high Heaven in Spanish, even after he’d bought them this beautiful house; hell, especially after he had bought them the house. She had told Andrea that now she was just “some drug dealer’s kept woman” and that “you need to have more respect, you never had any respect, Andrea, now you’re just like your mother.”

“I’m sorry?” Andrea offered.

“Your boyfriend says you’re in danger. Come with us.” 

Hank reached out to grab her hand, and she pulled it away.

“How am I supposed to believe you?” she shot at him. “I don’t know who you are! I’ve never seen you before in my life… I’m going to need…” She stepped back into her house a bit, wondering wildly what you should do if you thought you might need to call the police on the police. “I’m going to need some ID, for starters, before I or my son come with you… And I need proof you’ve actually talked to Jesse.”  
Hank let out a long sigh, and Andrea glared at him.

She had heard the stories, of course. She could remember her grandmother, and even her mother (when she had actually been around), telling her about men who would flash badges and lure girls into their cars, and then the girls would never be seen again.

He took out his phone, dialed a number, and handed it to Andrea.

She pressed it against her ear and breathed out, hoping for the best all over again. The best had a tendency to never come.


	11. Chapter Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Suicidal thoughts.

Jesse heard Andrea’s voice say, “Hello? Jesse?” and for a long moment, he wasn’t able to make himself speak. He was afraid if he said anything at all, he would start crying, or he would tell her everything that had happened.

He couldn’t, though, couldn’t tell her any of this, couldn’t draw her into his world any more than she already had been. He would wait until she was here, until she was safe, and then he would evade her questions but keep a positive outlook, act like this was all just a precaution insisted on by someone other than him, someone who was overestimating the threat.

Then, once this was all over, he would allow her to get back to her own life, with her son, in her beautiful house. And he would hope that she would never think of him again. It wasn’t as if he was worth it, worth her time. These last few days had only proven in – he was a broken man, and a rat at that. He couldn’t make it right, no matter what he did – anywhere he turned, he would have to betray someone.

Maybe the answer was to leave it entirely, when this was all over.

Maybe the answer was to let himself sleep, forever.

The thought had a strange sort of comfort in it, as if he had been hanging on to a rope and he could finally let go.

But he wouldn’t, not yet – he needed to save Andrea, first. He needed to make sure that she was safe and maybe he needed to make sure that Mr. White got put away as well.

He didn’t get a chance to think about it for long before the door opened. The phone was still in his hand, but it had long since gone dead. 

“Jesse!” a lilting, beautiful voice called, and he whirled around to wrap his arms so tight around Andrea that he was surprised he hadn’t bruised her. When Brock glided in behind her, Jesse scooped him up into his arms and swung him around, trying to smile widely enough to keep the tears in his eyes from showing.

“It is… so good… to see both of you. I’m so sorry that I… I didn’t want to take you out of what you were doing, but just… I didn’t want to risk…” And as much as Jesse had been trying not to cry, he started to feel the tears flowing underneath his eyelids and pouring down his cheek.

Andrea gently tapped him on the back.

“Jesse, we’re both fine. You know, your friend Walter came looking for you the other day.” 

Jesse’s face must have turned white, because Andrea’s eyebrows knit in concern.

“What’s going on? I thought the two of you were friends… Did… did something happen? That I should know about?”

Jesse’s mind scrambled as he tried to figure out what to tell her. If he didn’t tell her anything, she might leave, but if he told her the truth, she might hate him forever for bringing her into this at all.

He closed his eyes, unable to look at her, but the words began tumbling out. He did, strangely enough, as Mr. White had said – he told her about everything, about Combo and Gale and the two dealers, about Gus and about how now Mr. White had turned on him and, lastly, how Mr. White had been the one to poison Brock.

When he opened his eyes, Andrea was staring at him with an unreadable look on her face. He wondered what would happen if she decided she couldn’t be around him… Could she live here and just never speak to him? Lock herself and Brock in another room.

Shit, Jesse realized suddenly, Brock.

But Brock had busied himself in another room at some point, had found a purple table that he was fascinated by, jabbering along about how he could get cars set up to slide all over in, or maybe he could climb on it and… he had some sort of plan but all the words were getting hazy in Jesse’s head.

There was one thing, he realized, that he hadn’t told her yet. 

“Andrea,” he whispered.

“Let’s go sit you down, Jesse. You look horrible.”

She was so kind, his Andrea, always thinking of him and always trying to protect him from every evil person in the world. But could he protect her when those evil people came calling? What would keep away the nightmares of finding Andrea dead, collapsed, her fingers in a box or a lock of her hair attached to a note? If these men could do what they did to him, what could they do to an innocent woman?

She guided him into the spare bedroom and helped him to sit on the bed. 

“Okay, Jesse. You need to tell me what’s been going on. I feel like I’ve proven that I can be trustworthy, but maybe not – if you’re still keeping things from me, even though I followed you all the way here.”

“There are men. Bad men. And I… I ratted on them, Andrea.”

Her expression was unreadable; Jesse wondered if he had trampled on something that was sacred to her – she’d grown up in a neighborhood run by gangs after all. That kind of life could start out as survival and eventually become gospel truth, couldn’t it?

He should just keep going – that was all he could do. He might be stumbling blindly into a dark place, into a place he could never really understand and didn’t actually want to but… he would go there, for her. He owed it to Andrea to go into all of the scary places in his own heart and find a way to come back again.  
Because when he had called, she had come. Who else in his life had ever done that? Mr. White had, but only for his own gain.

Andrea truly loved him and he owed her this.

“They… they did…” He took a deep breath. “There were bad men and I ratted on them,” he began again, “And they found me here. Even here I wasn’t safe. But I’m still here. They can find me whenever they want. They know where I am and they know what I did. They found me and… they did things, Andrea.”

He was looking down, finding a place on the carpet to bore holes into for the rest of his life. 

She reached out and touched one gentle hand to his chin, and she raised him up and met his eyes. 

“Those kind of things?” she asked, and Jesse knew that she knew exactly what he had meant, and with a heart-shattering shake he realized how she knew.

He had never really asked Andrea about her past, and that was one of the many ways that he had failed her. Kind Andrea, pretty Andrea who he had taken for granted for all this time, who he had accepted at first as a substitute for a woman who was never coming back and, as of late, as a constant, as a person to push out of his life so that he could believe he was nobly protecting her.

Jesse nodded.

“I… It’s going to take me a while. I shouldn’t have brought you here! This was all a mistake. I’m just going to put you in danger and…”

“Jesse.” Andrea reached out and put a hand over his mouth. He flinched for a second – people too close, people touching him, that wasn’t good, he knew that wasn’t good and could never be good again – but then calmed. This was Andrea. Andrea was safe and good and if she wanted him to shut up then that was probably the right choice right about now. “Jesse,” she said again, “It’s going to be all right. As long as we keep our heads up and stay together… You know, I never had much hope for us until I met you. You changed something… you changed me. And if you think I’m going to let you go because you got caught up in something stupid, then you don’t really know me at all. Because I’ve done stupid stuff too, and you’ve even called me on it, and you’ve stayed.”

He leaned in to sadly nuzzle against her shoulder. He breathed in – she smelled nice, felt soft.

“I’m not going anywhere without you,” she told him. And he believed her.


	12. Chapter Eleven

“You’re asking me to track down a bunch of Nazis? On purpose, now?”

Walt sighed. Dealing with Saul Goodman was frustrating at the best of times, but right about now he hadn’t completely ruled out jumping across the table and strangling the other man. He didn’t need delay, and he didn’t need resistance. What he needed right now was a plan, and that was what he didn’t have.

“I need to find them, and I need to find Jesse.”

“Yeah, more like what’s left of him, buddy.”

Walt could feel his cheeks flushing. He wanted to pick up a table and throw it; he realized that soon, he’d be too weak to even think of it. That made him even more furious – they were wasting time! Time that none of them had, Jesse least of all if he were still alive!

“Saul, I need you to stop,” he waved his fingers, “Whatever it is that you’re doing right now, and I need you to focus every last ounce of energy on finding Jesse and on finding these men, because if you don’t, I swear to God I will murder you right here. I don’t even care anymore.”

Saul raised an eyebrow.

“You really care about this kid, huh?” He didn’t wait for Walt to answer, but instead continued with, “Which begs the question of exactly how these guys got their hands on Jesse in the first place. Seems to me we were having a talk about taking Old Yeller out back to the woodshed, and now suddenly Old Yeller is up on posters that are stapled to the phone poles. Not saying that one has anything to do with the other, but…”

“I will kill you.”

“Okay, all right. Loud and clear – what was that phrase you used, ‘Message Received, Western Union?’ Well it’s been delivered with a Moneygram, and I…”

“Saul. I need you to stop talking right now, or I am going to find you, and I am going to wring your neck. All I need you to do is to find Jesse, and any and all talking you do for the next few days needs to revolve entirely around that aim. Do you understand?”

“Okay, okay. Jeez. I’ll call you back when we find the kid.”

Walt was greeted to the shrill sound of the dialtone.

He slammed his finger down on the “end call” button and let out a long sigh. Was he just supposed to sit here and wait, then? Wait for Jesse to be brought back to him, dead or alive? What if they still had him and were just toying with him – Jesse and Walt both? What was his great plan then?

What a partner he had turned out to be. 

***

Jesse woke up in a cold sweat. His scream was dying in his throat. Maybe everything was dying.

“Jesse?”

He couldn’t tell who was calling his name, not at first. 

Everything was blurry, and he wasn’t sure if it was from still being half-asleep, or from crying.

He hadn’t realized that he was crying. It must have been at some point during the night.

“Jesse?”

He recognized the voice that time; Andrea’s voice. Andrea was always so soft and gentle… and she was here, with him. She hadn’t taken her son and left during the night, walking out on the disaster that seemed to always be Jesse’s life.

Why, though? He wondered what had made her stay.

First, though, he should really try to talk. 

“Andrea, hey.”

Jesse tried to act as if he weren’t completely losing his mind, which was harder than it looked. He wondered if everyone felt this way, and if any semblance of normalcy was just one big sham.

The Jesse of old wouldn’t recognize this new Jesse, that much was for sure. And some part of him hated the old Jesse – he was so clueless, so trusting and loyal. What had been his purpose, his point? Just to… 

But there he went, all over again, drifting off into his head. Nothing good could come from that. 

“Sounds like you didn’t sleep very well,” Andrea told him, shifting off of the cot that had been hastily placed in the room. Was that new Jesse – he couldn’t even sleep in the same bed as his own girlfriend? Or ex-girlfriend? 

As another person?

Maybe it was just all too close, couldn’t have hands on him again. He didn’t trust himself not to push away, not to flail away and scream and…

“…I didn’t,” he said quietly. He looked away. She would be able to read him, she would be able to see it all, and he didn’t want her to. Or maybe… maybe it did. It depended on if she was going to run away or not; she hadn’t, not yet. But would there be a point where it was all too much for her, too much baggage, too much disaster?

A little voice in his head told him that Jane would have checked out by now. She would have said “this is way too much.” Would have decided that this had stopped being fun and exciting a long time ago and that Jesse needed to get it all together. 

So who was he to keep Andrea here, trapped here in this place? Why not push her out of the nest and tell her that she and Brock needed to fly away?

“You didn’t sleep at all?” He watched as she swung her head back and pulled out a hairbrush from the desk next to her. She began to brush her hair as she continued, “Jesse, if you’re going to do this, you’re really going to need to take care of yourself. That’s how they win, by getting you all frazzled and frightened so you can’t even testify.”

Jesse shrugged.

“They already have me on video. That’s probably all they really need.”

“No, otherwise they wouldn’t be keeping you here.”

“Maybe they just feel bad about leaving me out to get slaughtered,” Jesse mumbled. He didn’t want to complain about this to Andrea, to keep driving the point home. She had come here to be with him – he didn’t deserve that. Didn’t deserve a family after all this, but he still wanted one. 

Had it really been so long since he had looked at Mr. White and said, “Instant family – what more could you ask for?”

When he had thought that his life was turning a corner, that he could keep Andrea in the dark and have her think that he was someone else. Someone she could be proud of, someone she could love. 

After all, his parents hadn’t loved him. He had thought that Mr. White could have loved him, did love him in his way, but that had been a lie in Jesse’s head, all another lie that he had clung to over and over again. A lie that had made him kill. A lie that had made him go along with evil.

Until now. But was he ever going to be all right again, or was he simply damaged and broken? Maybe he should just throw himself away while he still had the chance to. 

“Jesse,” Andrea said with a sigh, “Please. I know you’re scared. But just try to trust that maybe this will work out okay. And at least we’re together.” She closed her hand over his and squeezed it. He flinched. When would he be able to be touched by another person again? Hadn’t he been able to do that once? That seemed like a different Jesse. He wondered how that Jesse was doing, if he even still existed out there, somewhere in the world. He missed him. 

“Will work out all right,” Jesse repeated softly. What did those words even mean?


	13. Chapter Twelve

Walt occasionally stared into a mirror and considered what he would say to his former self. The Walter White who had taught high school, who had been meek and mild-mannered – no, that wasn’t true, not really. The Walter White who had taken crap and kept his rage simmering, smoldering under the surface, pressurized and ready to erupt, not ready to let it go because of what it would mean if he did.

How free he felt since he had stopped caring about all of that. He only wished it could have been years earlier, that he could have shed all those worries and cares and simply lived. He wished it hadn’t been a death sentence that had made him do it.

Would a death sentence change Jesse, now? Would he escape and come back stronger, braver?

He wasn’t sure if that was what he wanted or the exact opposite of it. Jesse and he had worked so well as partners because they had been so very different, after all – Jesse had been, for all his drug-dealing ways, such a wide-eyed idealist about so many things. He had been gullible, optimistic… He had needed Walt around to make sure he was set straight on things. 

Now, Jesse was lost. Walt had make a mistake in letting Jack and his crew anywhere near him – only Walt could help him; Walt knew how to make Jesse listen to him, and he always had. He just had to find him, first.

He had tried to contact Andrea, but the girl wasn’t there. That was odd, and a bit suspicious. Wherever she was, that had to be where Jesse had ended up, didn’t it? The boy never went far away from the things and people he loved, despite his threat to move to Oregon once upon a time. 

He had left six messages for Jesse, but the younger man hadn’t returned a single one. Wasn’t there a part of him that still knew the truth, that would still come back when Walter called? Sure, he had been hasty in that last argument, but hadn’t it been the truth? Everything he told Jesse was for his own good; everything.

Walt took out his phone again. Persistence was key – scientists didn’t give up because one compound didn’t work; they just kept trying until they got results. Now, that was what he would have to do – the scientific method, theories and hypotheses, and he would just have to hope that it was all before it was too late.

His phone rang in his hand, and it startled him so much that he nearly dropped the thing. He didn’t recognize the number, but why would he anymore? The only number he really called was Jesse’s. Everything else was simply a series of numbers on top of numbers, of equations maybe.

Meaningless.

It was all meaningless if it turned out that Jesse was dead. 

He pressed “answer” on the phone and, letting out a sigh, put it to his ear. 

“What?”

“Hello, friend.”

It was Jack’s voice, and it set Walt’s teeth on edge. What was he calling to tell him? He had called them off, goddamnit, Walt deserved the power in this situation, Walt deserved to be able to call off his own damned stupid Nazi hounds! They should fear him…

“What do you want, Jack?”

He didn’t have time for this; he needed to find Jesse, and the sooner the better. He was wasting time, had already wasted too much time.

“I wanted to tell you that I found your ‘non-rat’. And, I hate to be the one to tell ya, especially after your little shitstorm the other day over this, but your angry non-rat turned out to be an angry rat.”

“…What?” Jack had to have it wrong. Walt didn’t need to hear this kind of bullshit, not from him. Not now, while he was trying to find Jesse; not now, while time was of the essence.

“I found him at your brother-in-law’s house. You know, the Fed. You coulda clued us in on that one, Smart Guy. Good information to know, you know?”

Walt refused to believe it. That wasn’t who Jesse was; that wasn’t who Walt had taught and trained him to be. Him, a rat? That wasn’t true, that wasn’t right, couldn’t be right…

“What did you do with him?” Walt asked. Maybe this was all a lie, to cover up for the fact that they’d killed Jesse without checking with him.

But that could be even worse… The idea of Jesse laying crumpled in a heap, eyes shut, or even worse, open and staring out like Krazy-8’s had been…

He couldn’t do it, couldn’t do it, wouldn’t…

“We did a lot. But he’s still breathing. For now. Thought you might want to handle it yourself. But if you don’t do it soon… then I can’t promise that we won’t. Hopefully we’ve got him to keep his little rat mouth shut, but who knows how long that will last? Canaries chirp, and rats rat, Walt.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Salt in the wound.

He hung up. Walt would handle it.

The only question was how.

***

“Okay, so when can he go home?”

Jesse awoke to the sound of Andrea’s voice echoing off the walls, anger apparent in every word. His first reaction was to curl into himself and climb under his blanket – in his mind he saw those men again, gripping and grabbing at him, pulling him into the darkness and not letting him go.

“When he’s finished testifying. This is not the Holiday Inn, lady. We took you in as a favor, but this is all about putting Walter White away. We’re not running a charity service here, and we don’t want any of you around any longer than we need to have you.”

“Hank, calm down… Hank… Here, come on, come back.”

The sound of clanking, creaking footsteps. 

Then, the sound of the door opening as Andrea walked into Jesse’s room.

“I should go,” Jesse said quickly, scampering back into his bed and pulling the blanket around himself. “I’m… none of this is good. This is all a mistake.”

“No, it’s not!” Andrea snapped back at him, so hard that Jesse flinched. Her face softened, and she sighed. “Jesse… You’re doing what’s right, here. Walter’s a bad person. But it’s all a mess, Jesse. Maybe it’s not your mess. But we’re stuck in it now and there’s not much we can do about it.”

“We can leave. We can call… there’s this man. We can call him. I was going to call him, I was going to leave, I was…” Jesse paused, crestfallen, realizing that he had just admitted out loud that he was going to leave and never see Andrea or Brock again. But it had been for them that he was leaving, and it had been because of them that he had come back. He loved them too much; love was dangerous in his business. It could be deadly, for him and most of all for them.

But they didn’t understand. They only saw that he was going to leave.


	14. Chapter Thirteen

Jack Welker curled up his nose and looked around the clubhouse. The whole group of them were a mess. He’d let them do this thing to Pinkman, but he should have taken it to its logical conclusion. He was going to be a problem for them, no matter how scared he was.

At the end of the day, a rat was a rat. And letting a cat play with its food was a big mistake.

But then again, there was Toddy. Sometimes he spoiled the shit out of that kid. 

He couldn’t help it. It was as if some goddamned angel had brought him down, conceived him out of thin air and handed him to Jack, saying, “This is your responsibility, don’t you mess it up.”

And he hadn’t. Jack had loved his younger sister, but the girl had been a complete mess, and Todd hadn’t ever had a father around for longer than a fortnight (who even knew what an “Alquist” was, exactly?). But Jack, even though he’d never had a lawful wife (a few unlawful ones, though), was up to the challenge when it came to Todd. The only one who was. 

Sure, the kid had seemed a little “off” at times, but considering some of the shit his mother’s boyfriends had gotten up to, who could blame him? At least he wasn’t one of those whiny little brats like Pinkman. He’d never laid a hand on Toddy (his only failing, maybe – or maybe it was a good thing) but he knew he could’ve taken it if he had.

If he could just get rid of Todd’s endlessly weird fascinations with people who didn’t matter, like Pinkman and Lydia, then they would be in like Flynn. A minor setback. The kid acted like he didn’t feel much of anything most of the time, but there he’d be, looking after them like Jack had finally let him get a gerbil or a fish or whatever.

He spoiled him, so he let it happen. And the Quayle woman was useful, and not bad to look at on a slow day. Pinkman? He probably shouldn’t have let Pinkman go, as much as the huge “fuck you” to the DEA had felt incredibly rewarding.

And they would have him again. He would be Toddy’s dog if they kept him alive. He could cook for them. Who needed Walter? That old man had barely a year, if that, and he’d probably be wheezing all over the place. He’d slow down the whole operation.

But Pinkman? If they had their hands on him… It would be a license to print money. Lydia had already said that Pinkman was near the best.

He’d like to get his hands on Lydia, too. But that would all come in time…

***

“I’ll just need about fifteen to twenty men, Saul. I’m not asking for the moon.”

“Yes, you are – and I’m not an astronaut, Walter. I’m also on my way out.”

“Can’t you find these men, Saul? I thought you always knew a guy who knew a guy.” Walter moved around Saul’s desk in a flash, blocking off his exit. “I need your help. These men hurt Jesse. I need to find them and kill them.”

“And what about Pinkman? You just said he might be holed up in the DEA. That means time is running out for us both. And I’m not sitting around waiting for the credits to roll! I’m steping on the gas and wiping that tear away.”

“You let me handle Jesse. You just help me with Jack and his crew.”

“Yeah, you’ll worry about the one huge problem hanging over our head and leave me to deal with the band of Nazi assassins! You do hear yourself right now, don’t you? Because you sound like you just broke out of the cracker barrel!”

“You… just keep talking, Saul. Talking and talking and yet… I don’t hear any solutions coming out of your mouth. All I hear is a lot of complaining.”

“Your plan is impossible. Your best chance is to get out now before they come after all of us and haul us all away. I don’t know about you, but I’m not looking forward to recreating Oz for the rest of my days.”

“You really have no backbone at all, do you? And you’re the one who told me that I ‘suck’ at peddling meth. Do you remember that? Was that back when you had any balls, Saul?”

“It’s over, Walter. It’s just… Over. Whatever you want to do about Pinkman, you can choose to do. But… you’re going to have to find someone else to be in the next plan with you, because it’s not going to be me this time.”

Walt reached up to rub at his temples. What the hell was going on around him? He had been under the impression that he had a team! One would think that he hadn’t been bringing in millions of dollars for all of these people – who had ever seen a more ungrateful bunch of… But Walt was just going to have to rely on himself, it seemed. He had relied on himself in the beginning, and it was a good philosophy to return to. Saul had only been out for himself, anyway. 

“You’re useless,” he snarled at the lawyer. “Get out of my sight.”

“It’s my office!” Saul pointed out. 

“I don’t care.”

Saul rolled his eyes.

“Walter… Why are you… Well, the way that you are?” 

He gathered up his things and then, as promised, he left.

***

Jesse perched his arm on the window and peered out, wondering when it would all be over with. When would he be free? And what would that freedom even look like? Immunity, maybe, or time in prison rotting away for the things that he had done (Gale, he thought – he couldn’t ever let himself forget). But at least it would be freedom from Walter White. 

Andrea hadn’t talked to him in hours. He wondered if he had broken things with her for good – maybe it would be for the best. Even though he had taken advice from Walter to break up with her the first time, it seemed like a good idea – keep her safe from him. Safe from all of it, unless he had screwed that up already, too.

Tragedy seemed to follow whoever he was close to – he couldn’t help but think about Jane, think about how she was doing so well before she met him and how he had ruined it all. 

Maybe the answer was to go somewhere he wouldn’t be around any other people, after he was free. That might be the only way.

Go off to Alaska and live in a little tiny house, go fishing all the time and live off whatever he could make work for him from the frozen land. It seemed like a lonely life, but a safe one.

He would never see so many people again – Andrea and Brock, his parents and Jake. But he had already lost so many… maybe he should just be used to it by now. 

Maybe he would reinvent himself and push it all back away, pretend that it had all happened to someone else. He would come up with a fake name and a fake story; it would be like being a little kid again, where everything that he pretended was real really was in some kind of way. Where he wasn’t entirely sure that miracles couldn’t happen, and maybe they could.

Maybe they could.

Maybe he could pretend that Jesse Pinkman had been all pretend, too. That he was someone people made up in their heads and came up with a story for. 

He could create a whole new person and pretend that they were the real version. That he came up with Jesse Pinkman as a backstory, as an idea. 

A bad idea that should have been scrapped a long time ago.


End file.
